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Whole wheat sandwich loaf w/pix

March 13, 2006 - 4:35pm

Joe Fisher

Whole wheat sandwich loaf w/pix

While my loaves are rising in the pans, I thought I'd upload a few pictures.
These are Reinhart's 100% whole wheat loaves. I omitted the optional oil and egg. I also made my poolish this morning and left it in a cool place, instead of the fridge overnight. We'll see how they turn out.

Here's the kneaded dough:

And the risen dough, just before dividing:

I was asked about how I maintain surface tension. Pat them out to about 6"x8", then roll them up one layer at a time. In other words, roll the end until it touches the middle, then seal it with the side of your hand. Repeat. This creates and maintains the surface tension on the outside of the loaf, in this case the right hand side of the picture. It's still pretty hard to describe :)

This is the second time I've made this recipe. The first time, the loaves didn't rise enough in the pans. This time was no different. It seems like there isn't enough dough to make two, 8-inch sandwich loaves (like the recipe specifies). After forming the loaves, they would have to triple in size to crest the top of the pans.

Here's what they looked like after two hours rising (they stopped rising after about 90 minutes):

I'm not going to delete your post (unless he asks me to), but I'd ask that you respect his request for confidentiality and not post any more about it here, at least for the time being. If you are running into any trouble getting his recipes to work correctly, submit that information directly to him via the questionnaire he sent us.

Folks not on the test list: Peter's blog is here. If you read back the past 6 months or so of entries I think you can get the gist of what I'm talking about. Even if you aren't of the test list, his blog has some info you might find interesting.

And, yes, I am on the test list too. I think there are at least a half dozen testers on this site. Shhhh... ;^)

I was a bit surprised by your comments Floydm - I didn't think Joe's remarks re a recipe were untoward. I often discuss my success/failures when following published recipes and share ideas with others how to make progress.

As a matter of courtesy I always identify the source of my recipes - or even the inspiration if I have been tinkering - so that everyone knows this - isn't passing off something as your own plagiarism?

In any case, I doubt if Reinhart(?) is so sensitive about "his" recipe for wholewheat bread - his is exactly like or proportianlly the same as other published authors and there are only so many techniques/ cooking methods to share making bread.

Maybe you could publish your "rules" on posting comments so we don't fall foul of them.

I had the same reaction as you at first. After some research, it seems Reinhart is 'beta' testing some new recipies, and there are a bunch of folks giving him feedback. These people fill out feedback forms, and are not supposed to discuss the results. It appears Floyd thought I was one of those people, and breaking the rules.

This recipe, however, is not one of those (unless he's using the recipe from BBA). I presume it is OK to discuss it. I'll wait for Floyd's reply.

I'm all for sharing experiences. I'm also all for respecting an author's request that his or her recipes not be shared, at least until he or she has an opportunity to publish them and earn some income for all his or her hard work.

As you can see in his blog, Peter's new whole wheat bread recipe went out to the recipe testers on the 10th. Your post came on the 13th, so it seemed to me quite likely that you were testing his new recipe (particularly since no one has posted anything about his whole wheat bread in the entire year previous).

Nothing you disclosed was problematic, but I wanted to say something before anyone posted information that Peter asked folks not to share. My apologies if this came across as accusatory.

The question of whether posting recipes from books is legal is something I've worried about a fair amount. When I post a recipe on this site, I always try to make sure I give credit to the original author. I also try to link to a location where people can purchase the full book (which, many times they do). I also try to "make the recipe my own," adjusting the ingredients and text to reflect my experiences rather than directly copying from the book. As far as I can tell, doing so is legal, though if an author or publisher were to contact me and ask me to remove one of their recipes I would do so.

I should also add that Peter is an old friend of the family. He is a member of this site and has... not promised, but... given me his word that he'd consider doing a few pieces for this site when he has some time, perhaps in conjunction with the release of his next book. So I'm trying to stay in his good graces!

Back to your original post: I've never had any luck with 100% whole wheat breads. They always come out like bricks for me. I'm curious to see whether his new recipes can help me overcome that. My solution is to bake breads with no more than 25% whole grain flour, the rest organic unbleached bread or all-purpose flour.

Yeah, publishing recipes is a concern. Having had a few cook book authors and publishers review my site, I've been told what I'm doing is OK, but it is something I continually try to be careful about.

This site does, indeed, drive sales of the books. The product links I provide via Amazon earn me a small cut of the sales revenue (not enough to pay for the hosting or the advertising I'm doing to build traffic, but enough to keep the amount I spend each month supporting the site to a minimum). From the reports Amazon provides I can see that 10 people purchased the BBA since January via links provided on this site. I would suspect other folks purchased it from their local booksellers or other online merchants. I think as long as my articles are promoting book sales, not stealing them, I'm OK.

29. How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.

Thanks, Floyd, Joe and Jef for following this thread through - I think the debate about copyright and moral rights of authors is a very valid consideration and something that clearly the grown-ups who use this site are much more sensitive too than the low standards one sometimes comes across on other sites.

I am sure that those testing for Peter will help out a great deal and look forward to the new book. I certainly agree that where sensitive and thoughtful, recipe-sharing is a great way to encourage sales of books and supportive of both authors and their customers.

The advice in the UK is much the same as on jef's US link and, as I have produced two cookery collections for fund raising as well as baking for cancer research, I think it is well worth noting. Lists of ingredients are too universally similar - especially in baking eg ratios of fat to flour for pastry, eggs to sugar in sponge cakes etc but a cook's method and comments are personal and shouldn't be copied verbatim without permission. I do think it is OK to comment on success or failure with some analysis of one's own.

On the wholewheat bread front - so far, I have found:

* extra yeast
* Spelt wholewheat
* only one rising

help somewhat with the texture BUT have managed some fairly dense bricks in my time so ...

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